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All matters Canadian

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government has announced the most aggressive upgrade of Canada's military equipment in decades, laying out new expenditures of $15.3 billion to improve transportation capacities.

The new spending fulfilled Mr. Harper's campaign promises from January's election and did not come as a big surprise. But it represented the biggest break in policy by the new and mostly cautious Conservative government from 13 years of Liberal previous governments. The Liberals reduced military spending to a low of $8.4 billion in 1998, one of the lowest per capita among industrial countries.

But as Canada takes part in more global aid missions and stretches its military muscles in Afghanistan, where it is involved in its biggest combat operation since the Korean War, the government has made a case that the military needs more mobility and muscle.

The spending plan, detailed in a series of four announcements this week, sets aside money for new helicopters, planes, vehicles and ships that will give the armed forces a level of independence not seen in years after budget cuts in the 1990's halted replacements and upgrades for much of the military's transportation equipment. Most soldiers today are using equipment that should have been replaced a decade ago, some military analysts said.

In recent years, the Canadian military has often been forced to rely on foreign and commercial equipment to transport its troops to global conflicts and emergencies. Critics often point to the December 2004 tsunami that struck Southeast Asia, when it took 12 days for the Canadian disaster relief team to secure transportation to the region...

"Force won't work on its own." A new Canadian Senate Report

Canada should not waste military resources on defending the Arctic, but should sign on to the U.S. ballistic missile defence program and double the amount of money it gives for foreign aid, a Senate defence committee report released Thursday says.
Source: CBC.ca news story, October 5, 2006

This report marks a fairly major shift in the Canadian public rhetoric of defense. In addition to more conventional defense issues (e.g. spending limits, Arctic sovereignty), there is some interesting insight into how the debate is shifting towards a more COIN oriented strategy. The full Senate report is available here.

AQ calls for attack on Canada

Al-Qaeda has included Canada in a list of countries that it believes should be attacked for providing oil to the United States.

The Saudi Arabian arm of the network posted the threat on Sawt al-Jihad (Voice of Jihad), the group's online magazine, according to the Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE), a U.S. non-profit group that monitors militant websites.

According to the latest figures, Canada remains the top supplier of oil to the U.S., followed by Mexico and Saudi Arabia. Despite the tense relations between Washington and Caracas, Venezuela is listed as fourth on the top list of suppliers.

When The Chips Are Truly Down

Canada, the US, Austrailia and England can always count on each other and be counted on to do what is necessary. Not much blood will be allowed on the ol' Maple Leaf, that's for sure. God save the Queen, errr, the PM I mean.

Canada, the US, Austrailia and England can always count on each other and be counted on to do what is necessary. Not much blood will be allowed on the ol' Maple Leaf, that's for sure. God save the Queen, errr, the PM I mean.

LOLOL Definite "the Queen" - PM's are replaceable .

On a more serious note, I find it fascinating that they are openly calling for an attack on Canada. Given Canada's immigration laws and much more "liberal" culture, as well as our easy access to CONUS, I take this as a mark of either desperation or stupidity (six of one, half a dozen of the other). We may be laid back, on the whole, but they really don't want us to "get personal".

And Speaking of Them Good Kanucks.....

and straying off topic a bit, isn't it a Canadian that holds the record for the longest sniper shot made, eh? I'm pretty sure it is, done in Afghanistan a year ago or so. I think it's equal amounts of stupidity and desperation for AQ to be calling for attacks on Canada.

The real story

I think this is all a deception operation conceived by Marc to harden Canadian resolve. After many beers, the Prof of Computer Science of the group, decided to find an enemy server and gain root. After that they simply uploaded the message to sow confusion. Soon we will start seeing Operas preaching kindness and a rejection of extreme Jihadist views being disseminated from AQ. Of course the arabic being sung will have a distinct Canadian accent, eh. I'm looking forward to more of their perception management operations. Someone should be doing it.....

Perhaps this would be a good opportunity for Canada to recall Celine Dion and deploy her to Pakistan thereby helping both the US and Canada.

I think that every Canadian is proud of Celine Dion - consider, for example, what one of our top groups has written about her . Still and all, we are solid believers in Coalition operations so, we would have to ask for US entertainers of a similar stature to go on a joint operation: maybe Paris Hilton?

I digress, but...

I had the pleasure recently of meeting the Devil Dog who held the flag [yes, the upside down one] in that color guard. He was a Cpl then. He's a Maj now. I couldn't believe it was that long ago, thought he was pulling my leg, but several folks vouched for him and swore that, yes, it was him, it was that long ago, and I'm just getting old. Doesn't seem to have hurt him any. Nor the flow south of talented entertainers, oil, maple syrup, and shoe bombers.

But I refused to believe the bit about his threesome with Celine Dion and Paris Hilton backstage during a USO show.

Still and all, we are solid believers in Coalition operations so, we would have to ask for US entertainers of a similar stature to go on a joint operation: maybe Paris Hilton?

Marc

Absolutely. We would be willing to send Paris, and anyone who has ever been willingly photographed with her, to the Pakistan/Afghan border. They have been sucking the life out of this country long enough so why not send them someplace else to do it.

Canadian Small Wars Manual?

In the category of "better late than never," the Canadian army is publishing a 250-page manual to instruct troops on how to fight guerrilla and counter-insurgency operations.

According to the National Post, this is the first time an effort has been made to familiarize soldiers with this form of warfare presently being fought in Afghanistan.

The fact such a manual is only now being published in this first decade of the 21st Century, persuasively supports Gen. Rick Hillier's controversial view that for our military, the 1990s was a "decade of darkness." Hillier's bluntness has the Liberals in a tizzy, claiming he's parroting the Tory government's line.

What nonsense! As one who has paid some attention to the goings-on of our military, I'd argue that Hillier's "decade of darkness" is overly generous: Our military has been in a progressively darkening twilight zone since Pierre Trudeau became PM in 1968.

Last edited by SWCAdmin; 03-09-2007 at 03:29 PM.
Reason: Copyrighted work. Please read the full article at the link.

Renaissance in Canadian Military education and thinking

About a dozen years ago, I was invited to lecture at Canadian Forces College (CFC) in Toronto. Later, I worked with several Canadian officer colleagues at CGSC Fort Leavenworth, one of whom was then Major, now Lt. Col. David Last who is now the Registrar at the Royal Military College. Through that association, I was invited to evaluate the Master of Defence Studies program at CFC this past Fall.

I was very impressed with the difference and strides made by CFC in the last decade. Their program, patterned after Leavenworth's MMAS, is as rigorous but has a better complement of permanent civilian faculty, all of whom were chosen for their academic credentials and substantive expertise. The program can (and does) also draw on academic talent from RMC and other Canadian universities.

I supect that the new manual is just part of this renaissance in Canadian Military thought and I hope it takes the best from British, American, and French doctrine and tempers it with Canadian experience in PKO and operations in Afghanistan. If it does that, it will make a superior contibution to the cross national military doctrine discussion and debate.

Canada & Coin

The so called 'decades of darkness" were the response of both Conservative and Liberal governments to the demise of Canada's only convenetional threat, the USSR. Given the realities of government financing and politics, they had no other reasonable option but to reduce defence spending. The military was still given enough cash to be the second most expensive force per man in the world with total cash outlays 6th in NATO and 16th in the world. The CF made choices on what to spend it's budget on. It could have had more soldiers attend US Army Ranger and SF courses. It could have taught more foriegn languages (it only offers Spanish) at the Royal Military College. It could of had a mountain school. It could have offered COIN as a subject on it's Master of War Studies program. It could of had COIN as a subject at staff colleges. It could of bought suitable aircraft. It did none of these things but not for want of cash and not from interferance from politicians. I suggest that it was because the officer corps could not imagine particpating in a "Viet Nam", found language study difficult (in the CF it still makes far more career sense to perfect French or English than to learn Dari or Pashtu) and found playing tank versus tank war games much more fufilling than thinking about politics, culture, reconstruction and police work.

Thanks for the edit

Jed--

Thanks for the edit. Being able to locate the books easily will help anyone who is interested in the subject. But I am most grateful for your posting of Chris Madsen's article. It really is relevant to this site.

On the "for fun" aspects, the photo reminded me of the famous photo of the Pershing Punitive Expedition to Mexico in 1916. The US and Canadian uniforms of the era were practically the same; both armies used similar bridles; but they differed with respect to saddles. The US used the McClellan (which I have never ridden but some swear by it while others hate it); the Canadians used the British Universal Pattern (UP). I have a modern version that is supremely comfortable - of course it does use a modern gel cushion for my tired old butt!

Canada paid a heavy price during WWI. Was cautious and didn't have a hard time during WWII as opposed to the British and Americans. They lost their punch. It is taking nearly a hundred years to get it back. I did see the Snowbirds one time and they were awesome in their slower CT-114 tutor jets. But that group, type of aircraft, and choice of name is typical of Canadian military mindset.

OTTAWA — References to radical natives in the Canadian Army's counter-insurgency manual will not appear in the final version of the document, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor announced.

The use of "radical Native American organizations" as an example of insurgents in a draft version of the manual has outraged native leaders, who viewed the wording as a threat to their political rights to protest.

The experince of the Canadian Forces with the natives (specifically Oka) is one of the main domestic examples of how the Canadian military responded. It is very different than what the CF is going now in A-Stan. Regardless, it is a great case study similar to the protection of the Olympics in Montreal and the FLQ October Crisis. It should be in there even if the term "radical" maybe is not used.